Natural Sciences  

Contact Natural Sciences

 Object Enquiries Form [MS Word 43k]

 Browse objects in the Natural Sciences collections

As part of our service to the general public, students, researchers, consultants, local authorities and other bodies, we are happy to deal with all enquiries associated with natural history. These include those directly related to the collections, the identification of specimens (including entire specimens and parts that may be found in food etc), advice on pest species, insects and hygiene, species records and environmental data for Brighton & Hove, geological and marine information for Sussex including RIGS and MSNCIs. Expert witness work is also undertaken. Most work is free, but in some cases administrative costs have to be met.

History

Founded in 1874, by 19th century naturalist and collector Edward Thomas Booth, the Booth Museum of Natural History is the second largest regional natural history museum in Britain. As well as housing Booth’s original collection of British birds, today it contains three quarters of a million natural history specimens in a collection designated of national importance.

At the time Booth was creating his unique dioramas for his ornithological collection, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery was assembling a wealth of natural history material. During the 1970s the council's vast geological and zoological collections were transferred to the Booth Museum, which was re-named a museum of natural history. Significant collections from the Brighton & Hove Natural History, Philosophical and Microscopical societies were also acquired.

The collections

Today these combined collections form a staggering archive of flora and fauna, with virtually every group of living organisms represented, including many rare, endangered and extinct species. Though the collection is primarily focused on the natural history of the local region, it also extends to other countries and continents.

The complete collection comprises over 600,000 biological and 50,000 geological specimens. In addition there are over 5,000 microscopic slides, 12,000 books, journals and periodicals dating back three centuries, and thousands of site records. Almost a thousand of the specimens have been published in scientific journals, and include many ‘type’ specimens (specimens used in the original description of a species).

The predominant collections include the following.

Insects

Over half a million specimens make up the collection of butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, dragonflies, bees etc. This includes over 650 internationally important butterfly ‘types’. The museum's current display of butterflies (only a tiny proportion of the 20,000 different species held), stems from a popular temporary exhibition mounted jointly with the Royal Pavilion in 1937.

Molluscs (represented by shells)

This collection of 60,000 marine, land and freshwater shells ranges from the British Isles to the Oceanic Islands and the Far East.

Vertebrates

Brighton solicitor Frederick Lucas (1842–1932) assembled a comprehensive collection of skeletons, which now forms the bulk of this 80,000 strong collection of amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals. Non-skeletal material is represented by mounted vertebrates, skins, and over 60,000 birds’ eggs. The displays include a killer whale stranded on Hove Beach in 1935, the skull of an elephant who died at London Zoo in 1980, and Lucas’s own Irish deerhound ‘Wolf’ and Pomeranian ‘Saucy Bill’.

Plants

There are over 60,000 examples of algae, mosses, liverworts, lichens, ferns, conifers and flowering plants. Of historical note is the significant collection from St Petersburg made by Sir A Crichton, physician to the Russian Tsar circa 1795.

Geological

Among the 55,000 geological specimens, Henry Willett’s 1860 bequest of chalk fossils remains one of the collection’s cornerstones. The museum's display includes fossils, minerals, 350 million-year-old corals, shells from a 55 million-year-old ‘Mediterranean’ lagoon near Newhaven, and the 140 million-year-old bones of dinosaurs that once wandered the Sussex Weald.

Other collections

Other smaller but significant collections include over 4,000 bryozoans (sea-mats), slime moulds, crustaceans, echinoderms, sponges, hydroids and bacteria. Many of these are slide mounts.

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